Amph Fantasy Books Content Guide

Is anyone aware of a website or other service that provides a content guide for fantasy books, perhaps similar to the movie/television rating systems regarding violence, language and sexual content? I have a son and daughter who are avid readers, but I want some help determining what books written for an older audience may still be age appropriate (without having to read all of them).

I haven't seen anything, either. I guess the thing to do is keep an eye on what they're reading and ask us here if you're not sure about them to see if someone does know. Off the top of my head, Laurell K. Hamilton is an author you'd probably want them to avoid.

Oddly enough, given it's a much older and most established form of storytelling, no, there are no content guides.

Having said that: as a general rule, media-tie in novels tend to be rather tame, while creator-owned works will sometimes be darker, with more sex, drugs and/or rock and roll. The same applies for comics. Reading Marvel or DC superhero books, it's unlikely you'll see more than exploitation of a pretty face or fully clothed women in suspicious poses from artists who look like they trace their work.

I'd keep young children well away from the likes of Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, Carey's Kushiel series, or Goodkind's The Sword of Truth. Mind you, I tell everyone to avoid The Sword of Truth, but that's just because the kinky sex is unfortunately the highlight of a weak series. Even some of the most popular media tie-in books have a bit of sex in them, though nothing explicit: Dragonlance had a waterfall scene and a scene in an inn that were obvious lead ins to sex that happened just off-camera.

Best advice I can give: if you're going to let a young reader read anything in SFF, consider reading it first. Or re-reading it: I almost lent a cousin Stardust, before rereading it and remembering that there's some surprisingly dirty parts early on.

Yeah, if the kids are young enough, read everything before they do. And anything with a woman on the front cover who is showing a LOT of skin probably has sex in it. And sometimes reading the reviews can help -- any reviews with the words "errotic" hidden in them have sex.